The only light in your dark, dark world
by AWanderingSoulSometimesLost
Summary: "I wish I loved you less, Niklaus. It would all have been much easier." I don't own anything.


"You could have killed me. In the woods."

Klaus' undead heart made a single beat – a treacherous beat nonetheless. As the most powerful being that had ever walked the face of the Earth, he ought not to feel surprise. Or fear.

Yet both were creeping into his mind, slipping through the cracks he hadn't even known they existed.

How could _she_ be here? How had he not noticed her before?

Why wasn't a bulled made of white oak ripping its way through his chest already?

As if in a slow motion, like he was trying to not to scare her (when he would give everything to possess that power) he turned around to gaze into the eyes of a woman who had once been able to tell the difference between his feelings just by listening to his heartbeat.

He hoped a thousand years apart had weakened that ability to the point of extinction.

"And you could have killed me." He said, lowering his gaze to the gun in her hand for a moment, before his eyes returned to her pale face. His lips shaped a conceited smirk, though he was very far from confident. "But you didn't. A terrible mistake you'll live to regret."

Aurora made a step towards him, her eyes never leaving his. Her expression was unreadable, her thoughts hidden in the shadows of her green eyes.

"What makes you think I won't do it right now?" She inquired almost curiously.

But he could see his words had made an impact, even if it was a weak one. Her hand was shaking ever so slightly, just enough for his heightened senses to notice.

He had the advantage for now, but who knew what was going on under those long red locks. Aurora did seem distracted, but it would hardly last. He had to get his hands on the gun as soon as possible, before she made her move. Talking seemed like the best tool of distraction at the moment.

"Well, if you had it in you, love, we wouldn't be having this conversation now, would we?" He observed casually, making a step towards her. "It does make me wonder why you don't, if it's true hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

To his surprise and displeasure, she laughed wholeheartedly, like a little girl who had just been given a new toy. Unfortunately, her laugh did not share her mind's fate of having been twisted by time. It still sounded like a bird's song to his ears – in the soft crimson light of a new-born dawn, like her name suggested. So many times he had painted that face, that laugh – he knew it like the back of his hand.

He hated it that he did.

"You might think you hate me, Niklaus," His name on her lips – it sounded so sweet even after so many years. A gust of wind against a butterfly's wings, a snowflake falling on a petal of a snowdrop. "But your actions claim otherwise."

"How so?" He asked with a mean smirk. The longer she talked, the less focused she would become. That was his chance. "Please, do tell."

A bright smile crossed Aurora's face, making her emerald eyes spark. For yet another moment, he was taken back a thousand years into the past, gazing into the eyes of an angel, a night filled with stars. She was so beautiful – so broken – it _almost_ pained him.

"I watched you, Niklaus." She murmured softly, her eyes never leaving his as if to prove her point. "For a thousand years, I watched you as you looked for a replacement for me in all corners of the world. There were many women in your life after me, but I could not hate you, because you looked at none of them the way you used to look at me."

He remained silent, more focused on finding a weakness in her defence that would enable him to knock the gun out of her hand. He knew the story that would follow – the tale of how she had turned Camille to spite him, to destroy the light of humanity in his life.

No need to say that he was utterly caught off guard when Aurora's story took a completely different turn.

"Then your path led you back home." She continued, her voice remarkably colder. "Isn't that ironic, that only there did light truly shine in your eyes?"

A sight of a young blond vampire appeared in his mind, in a long blue gown he had given her, with his birthday gift around her wrist she hadn't had to wear, but chosen so anyway. The lightness of her feet as she danced, the ease with which she embraced all the perks of being a vampire, the sharpness of her tongue, but mostly the light in her light blue eyes (so different than Aurora's) – it had made him _fall_. He never quite got up to his feet again.

With a lot of 'generous' help from his busy life in New Orleans, he had been pushing away all his thoughts of Caroline ever since they had last parted ways. It was easier that way. Besides, with Hope in his life, he could not give Caroline what she desired the most – he could not put her before his daughter. In a way, it was good they had moved on. Still, that did not mean he didn't miss her, or that he didn't occasionally entertain the thoughts of what could have been.

"After a thousand years, I was replaced by another." Aurora's voice snapped him out of his musings. A single tear, like melted crystal, was falling down her cheek. "It broke me, Niklaus. I could not stand it."

He stared at her soundlessly, still like a statue. It was not out of cruelty.

Her words had struck a chord, deep within him. He had thought he had no mercy, no compassion left for Aurora. But he had once loved her, more deeply that he had ever loved anyone outside his family. The true sorrow on her face – a reflection of his from a millennium ago when Elijah compelled her to break his heart – he could not deny a part of him, no matter how small, wanted to reach out to her and wipe those tears from her face.

He held himself back, knowing that move could be his demise. That was how it was with the two of them.

Two cursed beings, one cursed love.

Hate was the only thing that kept them safe.

"My dear brother found me and tried to help me." Fury twisted Aurora's lovely features, her delicate, yet deadly fingers, curling firmly around the trigger. Tristan's fate was one wound that no amount of time would ever heal. Klaus half-expected a bullet tearing its way through his chest at that point, but it never came. "But I couldn't forget it. The way you looked at her, the way you spoke to her, as if she were the only light in your dark, dark world. The light that I used to be."

"I moved on, Aurora." He protested defensively, not realizing what he was saying until it was too late. Why did he feel the need to justify himself to this woman? Was it possible that, after everything that _she_ had done to hurt _him_ , it was still in her power to make _him_ feel guilty for hurting _her_? "What we had… It was destroyed. Not by our fault, but it still was." Shivers suddenly went down his spine. "What… Did you do something to Caroline?"

She let the silence linger. The longer it lasted, the more anxious and angrier he became.

"Me? No." She shook her head at last, sensing his loss of patience. "By the time I…recovered, you had already left Mystic Falls. Unfortunately, before I could reach New Orleans, my brother found me again and insisted I could not see you."

"One might say I did you a favour when I got rid of him."

It was thin ice he was walking on, but Klaus preferred it to the cracks Aurora was (unconsciously or not) finding in _his_ defence. He could not afford to pity her, to forget what she had done. She had killed Camille. She had almost killed Elijah. She was threatening to kill him.

 _And yet…_

"And yet you would have my heart ripped out of my chest for trying to take _your_ brother's life." She deadpanned sarcastically. "My brother was many things, but he never hurt me. Can you say the same for yours?"

Her blow hit the bulls-eye and they both knew it. At last, tearing them apart had been Elijah's doing, whatever his noble reasons were. Over the years, his brother had stabbed him in the back more times than he could count, a habit that had been multiplying like cancer cells since Hayley Marshall had entered their lives.

"Why didn't you come to my aid?" He demanded, forgetting everything about their current situation. He might be still standing, but there was no denying she had opened a new wound, even without any bullets shot. Despite himself, he felt betrayed – even sad – that she would have let him die without a second thought. "Why did you follow me wherever I went, only to stand aside and watch as my enemies made their moves against me?"

Her breath caught, so did his. Not a single sound was made. He watched her as something similar to guilt filled her features, not finding any satisfaction in the fact he seemed to have gained the upper hand in this conversation.

"I made a vow." She replied after a few long moments of silence, her voice shaking slightly. "Your family brought so much pain and misery to mine. I promised myself I would never again cross paths with the Mikaelsons, unless it was the matter of life and death. My family's life and death."

She had chosen her family over him. He had done the same. They were even.

Why did the fact she didn't love _him_ the most hurt so much then?

"But I could not let _you_ go." She continued when he didn't answer. "I was too weak. I loved you too much." A teasing smile graced her lips, as if they were children sharing a tale of mischief. "I _did_ play games with you sometimes, even if you didn't know it. Did you not wonder how that Petrova doppelganger managed to escape you for so long?"

He had, actually. Now it made sense.

"You helped Katerina escape."

"Only in the beginning." Aurora shrugged her shoulders modestly, as if she didn't want to take Katherine's credit. "I have to admit I was impressed by how quickly she learned to survive on her own. I was sorry when I learned of her death."

He didn't think she was lying about this either. He had no trouble imagining the alliance between Aurora de Martel and Katherine Pierce. Beautiful, cunning and merciless – they would have made a lethal duo had the world had the misfortune of the two of them deciding to team up.

"Is there any other enemy of mine you've been helping?" He asked sarcastically, pushing the thoughts of Katherine Pierce aside. She was now a rotting corpse and Aurora was on her way to join her. "Besides the ones I already know of?"

He thought her reveal of Katherine's associate in escaping him had steeled him against any regret he might have regarding Aurora. To her, his personal vendetta had been just a game, a way to indirectly participate in his life. Who was to say she had not played other, more dangerous games, with his enemies? It seemed she had come here alone, but what tricks did she hide up her sleeves?

His suspicious mind again wasn't ready for the truest sorrow that filled her features at his words. He knew that look – he had _felt_ it.

"Do you really think that low of me, Niklaus?" She blinked, her eyes not quite dry. "Until you sentenced my brother to an eternity of pain, I would never have helped your enemies kill you."

"You said yourself you had stood by and done nothing when they tried." He spat angrily. "How is that not helping them?"

"Less helpful than your family trying to take your life with their own hands, I'd say." She stated coldly. "Elijah tried to kill you, multiple times. Finn too. Kol too. Rebekah brought your father's wrath upon you just so she could be with some man she thought she loved."

"This is not about my family's treatment of me." He snarled. It did hurt, knowing she was partially right. "This is about yours. If you had come…If you had proven your love to me…Maybe I wouldn't have looked for it elsewhere. Maybe we…"

"You would never have given up your family, not even for me." She cut him off. "I could not have bathed in that poison, Niklaus, day after day for eternity." Her voice turned into a whisper. "I'm sorry, but I could not. And you would never have left them behind."

He could not deny she had her reasons to detest his family (particularly Elijah), but he could not believe what she would have asked of him. His family, as toxic as it might be, was the only thing he was sure he would have forever. He could not let it go.

"And you would have given up your brother for me?" He countered swiftly and firmly, just wanting to see her shy away in shame. She loved Tristan enough to set her course on this suicide mission of looking for a way to kill an Original, knowing she might easily lose her own life in the process. "He would have forbidden our love had he known of it. He would never have stopped hunting us, wherever we ran. Would you have run a stake through his heart just to be with me?"

Two tears fell down her left cheek, to the corner of her cherry-red lips where they perished. She didn't bother to wipe their trails away. If she did, it would give him enough time to snatch the gun…

"Yes." She whispered, the entire world fitting into such a short word. "Once… When I was younger and foolish… Yes, I would have."

He looked up and down her face, searching for a lie in her features, in her voice, in her words. Looking for it desperately. It would force his hand to do what had to be done. Her hand was already forced, because she wouldn't – _couldn't_ – ever stop looking for revenge for her brother.

He could not take this anymore. Knowing everything he did now, reopening old wounds felt like tearing his own skin off his body. The life they could have had together, the person he could have been, the love they could have shared – imagining it, knowing it was all lost and they could never be anything but enemies, it made his heart (the same heart everyone thought cold and cruel) shatter. It was easier to hold onto the reality in which she held the weapon of his demise in her hand and he had to kill her before she killed him. It was easier to become the monster she had accused him of being so long ago, rather than relishing in the love only an angel like her could hold for a demon like him, even if she was a demon herself now. Even the devil had been an angel once – the most beautiful of all.

"If you are here to kill me," He didn't look away from her eyes for a moment, "Why don't you do it then, Aurora?"

Her hand, which had been holding a gun directed at him all this time, was now shaking wildly, as if she had lost control over it. Still, he knew that if he moved at the wrong moment, she _would_ shoot him, instinctively. If he wanted to survive this, he had to make her believe she _didn't want_ to kill him. Once the bullets made of white oak were out of the way, he would… her fate would be his to decide.

Suddenly, a gunshot echoed in his ears.

Pain surged through him, but its roots were… in his back.

He fell on his knees, pain spreading to the last cell of his body. His heart… he could almost feel pieces of wood being run into it, making him scream in agony. His blood burned as he fell forward, his head rushing to meet the floor…

He felt two gentle hands grabbing his shoulders, stopping his fall. Suddenly, his head was lying in Aurora's lap, her blue eyes glazed with tears, her body shaking in sobs.

He could not move. He could feel his body desiccating, numbness spreading though his veins. His limbs were too heavy for him to lift them. His breath was caught in his throat, suffocating him.

 _No!_ He tried to escape, but there was nowhere to run. Fear engulfed his mind as his death approached – an enemy he had thought he had defeated. _No!_

"Farewell, Klaus." A familiar voice drawled mockingly. "I hope you accommodation in hell suits you."

"Lucien…" He snarled, fighting for every breath against the tide that threatened to drag him down. He _had_ to find enough strength to take that treacherous little snake with him. "I'll be waiting for you."

"You'll be waiting for a long time, dear friend." Lucien smirked confidently, kneeling next to him. Klaus tried to reach for him – for his neck, more precisely – but his half-dead body refused to obey his will. "The sirelines have been broken. We are all alone in our deaths."

"Elijah…"

"Elijah is already waiting for you." Lucien cut him off smugly. "So is the rest of your dysfunctional family. I have no interest in fighting off vengeful Mikaelsons and their wolf pets."

 _How? Why?_ He looked at Aurora. Her eyes were still filled with tears. Her hands caressed his face gently, as if she had not just taken part in his murder and the murder of his entire family.

"He knew I would not be able to bring myself to kill you." She glanced at Lucien, whose expression suddenly turned from a conceited smirk into… Klaus could not tell. He had never seen it on Lucien's face before. It might be love – but knowing Lucien, hardly. Then her eyes turned back to Klaus. "I wish I loved you less, Niklaus. It would all have been much easier."

"I hate him enough for both of us." Lucien took her by the elbow gently, prompting her to stand up. "Come, Aurora. We've done what we'd come here to do."

Klaus' eyes met Aurora's for the shortest of moments.

In the next one, another gunshot fired.

The last thing Klaus Mikaelson's eyes saw was the body of the first vampire he had sired falling onto the floor next to him with a hole in his chest.

Pity. He would have preferred the shine of the last disappearing star in a dying night – the spark in Aurora's eyes…


End file.
